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Fair warning: if you missed Top 14’s Sunday Night fixture, you missed one of the best games of this young season. Toulouse tore Bordeaux apart 48-12 at Ernest-Wallon on Sunday, with the contest effectively over by half-time. And right in the middle of the demolition job is our own Ange Capuozzo.
Who won Toulouse-Bordeaux, and by what score?
Toulouse beat Bordeaux 48-12 on Sunday 13 September at Ernest-Wallon, in round two of the 2026-2027 Top 14. Ugo Mola’s side had the game wrapped up by half-time, leading 36-0 with six unanswered tries, before managing the second half to the final whistle.
Six tries to nil before the break
Toulouse’s first half was one of the best I’ve seen in a while: six tries to nil, 36-0 at the break, vertical, direct rugby — almost old-school All Blacks stuff, none of the usual behind-the-back offloads. The scorers, in order: Kalvin Gourgues (16′), Ange Capuozzo (19′), Julien Marchand (a brace, 25′ and 40′), Santiago Chocobares (31′) and Teddy Thomas (35′). Bordeaux, for their part, struggled badly early on: they came into this one having heavily rotated the side that thrashed Racing 92 64-5 a week earlier, and it showed.
Capuozzo, the ultimate poacher
And then there’s him. Inside three minutes, between the 16th and 19th, Capuozzo had his hand in two tries: first a brilliant grubber that set up Gourgues, then his own, helped by a lucky bounce off the corner flag that stayed in play. That’s Capuozzo the pure opportunist, always knowing exactly where to be. We’ve known about the legs for a while, but for me it’s the head that makes him special: he reads the game a beat before everyone else.
Dupont back to metronome mode, and Italy’s Page-Relo holds firm
The real sign that Toulouse are back to their true level, though, is Antoine Dupont. No try, no separate-from-mortals magic today, but he was a superb metronome: right tempo, right spaces, calmly running the show.
For Bordeaux it’s a collective horror show, but one name deserves credit: Martin Page-Relo. The scrum-half, Italian through his mother’s side and capped 21 times by the Azzurri since 2023 (including the 2023 World Cup), had a solid first half despite the scoreline — he pulled off a lovely 50-22 kick and stayed lively throughout. Formed at Toulouse in Dupont’s shadow before moving through Lyon and now Bordeaux, he confirmed today he’s a scrum-half of real international quality.
Tries from a maul, from a counter-attack, from a lineout move: a complete Toulouse performance in every sense.
The kicking-tee detail
One curiosity from the first half: Toulouse’s first three tries went unconverted. Then, from Chocobares’ try onward, Romain Ntamack took over the kicking duties and was perfect, landing all four conversions he attempted, including the one after the final try at 80′. A small mystery in an otherwise flawless Toulouse afternoon, though it mattered little with a thirty-point cushion already banked.
Bordeaux wake up late, but it’s a long season
In the second half, Bordeaux found some pride: Cyril Baille opened Toulouse’s second-half account at 45′ (41-0), before the visitors hit back through Pablo Uberti (52′) and Tomaakino Taufa (61′, converted by Maxime Lucu), taking some of the sting out of the scoreline. In fact, the second-half try count was even, 2-2: Baille and Georges-Henri Colombe Reazel (who closed things out at 80′) for Toulouse, Uberti and Taufa for Bordeaux. The damage, for the visitors, was all done in the first forty.
Worth remembering the context here: these are arguably two of the strongest sides in Europe right now. Last season it was Bordeaux who knocked Toulouse out of the Champions Cup at the quarter-final stage, before lifting the trophy themselves; Toulouse made up for it by winning the Top 14. Today was only round two, an early-season test, but the message from Toulouse was clear all the same — and Tommaso Menoncello’s absence, not even among the replacements, has a precise explanation, which we cover in the piece below.
Read also: Where was Ange Capuozzo? Anonymous in La Rochelle and Why Menoncello missed Toulouse-Bordeaux: the real reason.
That’s my take — now it’s your turn: what did you make of this Toulouse side? Let me know in the comments, and if you haven’t already, subscribe to the channel. See you next time.
Danilo — DanPat Rugby